IOC sanctions six members of Russian women's ice hockey team as part of Sochi 2014 investigations

Olga Sosina #18 of Russia celebrates with teammate Inna Dyubanok #77 after scoring a goal in the third period against Viona Harrer #27 of Germany during the Women's Ice Hockey Preliminary Round Group B Game on day two of the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics at Shayba Arena on February 9, 2014 in Sochi, Russia. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

LAUSANNE, December 12, 2017 - The IOC has
sanctioned six members of the Russia women’s ice hockey team from the Sochi
2014 Winter Olympic Games as a part of the Oswald Commission hearings, which
are being conducted in the context of the Sochi 2014 forensic and analytic
doping investigations.

The six Russian ice hockey players out of the
21-player roster that finished in sixth place at Sochi 2014 are: Inna DYUBANOK,
Ekaterina LEBEDEVA, Ekaterina PASHKEVICH, Anna SHIBANOVA, Ekaterina SMOLENTSEVA
and Galina SKIBA. The case opened against a seventh athlete has been closed
without a sanction.

As of now, the number of cases opened by the
Disciplinary Commission has reached 46 after additional findings from the
re-analyses. Thirty-three of them have already been heard, of which two have
been filed. As some investigations are still ongoing (notably the forensic
analysis of the bottles), it cannot be excluded that there might be new
elements that would justify opening further new cases.

- Inna DYUBANOK, Ekaterina LEBEDEVA, Ekaterina
PASHKEVICH, Anna SHIBANOVA, Ekaterina SMOLENTSEVA and Galina SKIBA are found to
have committed anti-doping rule violations pursuant to Article 2 of the
International Olympic Committee Anti-Doping Rules applicable to the XXII
Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, in 2014, and are disqualified from the events in
which they participated.

- The six athletes are declared ineligible to be
accredited in any capacity for all editions of the Games of the Olympiad and
the Olympic Winter Games subsequent to the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014.

- The Russian Team is disqualified from the
Women’s Ice Hockey Event and the International Ice Hockey Federation is
requested to modify the results of the event accordingly.

In addition to these six decisions, the IOC
Disciplinary Commission has issued a seventh decision in which it found that
the elements in the file and the conclusions of the investigations conducted so
far were not sufficient to establish an anti-doping rule violation.
Accordingly, the disciplinary proceedings opened against the athlete were
terminated and the case filed. In order to protect the rights of the athlete,
the identity of the athlete concerned will not be disclosed and the decision
will not be published at this point in time.

The Disciplinary Commission, chaired by IOC
Member Denis Oswald, is responsible for investigating the alleged doping
violations by individual Russian athletes. Therefore, all the samples collected
from Russian athletes at the Olympic Winter Games Sochi 2014 that were
available to the IOC were re-analysed. This had two goals: to further review
the samples for evidence of doping, and separately to determine if the samples
themselves or the bottles were manipulated or tampered with.

Due to the nature and complexity of the cases,
this thorough, comprehensive and time-consuming process has taken several
months and had to involve external forensic experts, who had to develop a
legally-defendable methodology for all the cases under the jurisdiction of
the Disciplinary Commission. Due process has to be followed, and re-analysis is
still underway.

The IOC showed its determination to protect
clean athletes from the very beginning of the case, in July 2016, by immediately
establishing the Disciplinary Commission and the Inquiry Commissions, following
the publication of the McLaren report. The IOC took this extra measure as Prof.
McLaren did not have the authority to bring forward Anti-Doping Rule Violation
(ADRV) cases against individual athletes.

The Oswald Commission has announced that all
hearings for active athletes who could qualify for the Olympic Winter Games
PyeongChang 2018 will be completed shortly. In accordance with the World
Anti-Doping Code, confidentiality has to be respected in the interests of the
athletes concerned. The purpose of this work is to ensure that the
International Federations (IFs) have the necessary tools to protect the
qualification competitions. The outcome of the hearings will be announced as
soon as possible after each individual hearing. This will allow the IFs to
follow up with their own disciplinary hearings immediately, and to take the
athletes concerned out of the qualification system as soon as possible.